"So, on television he puts his glasses on and produces this sheet of paper. Facts. The facts were all wrong. All I said in reply was that Rafa was obviously bitter about something... That was me saying to him: look, you're a silly man. You should never make it personal.

"The advance publicity was that Benitez was a control freak, which turned out to be correct."

Sir Alex expanded by saying that when it came to choosing a winner between his old rivals, Jose Mourinho was the better manager:

"If you saw Jose and Rafa standing together on the touchline, you knew you could pick the winner."

In 2009, Rafa Benitez launched an astonishing, pre-scripted five minute attack on Alex Ferguson, accusing him of playing mind games and influencing referees.

He also joked that Chelsea should employ zonal marking of referees when playing against Manchester United:

"We know what happens every time when we go to Old Trafford. Mr Scolari needs to know to use the zonal marking against the staff of United because they are always doing the man to man with the referees when they go to the bench."